


i'm not going anywhere.

by altruism



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Cuddling, Drunken Confessions, Fluff, Hair stroking, Love Confessions, M/M, brian being a supportive boyfriend, freddies cat is lowkey judgemental, im so soft for these boys, insecure! roger, just pure fluff, minor deacury, plus roger rambling about cats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 08:35:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17342123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altruism/pseuds/altruism
Summary: “I have one night stands. That’s all I’m good for. We shag, then they leave in the morning. That’s my routine. Everyone knows I sleep around, and I thought I was okay with it, I thought that was all my life was going to be - concerts, booze, and one-night-stands - and you know what, I was starting to come to terms with that. Maybe I even thought I was okay with it.”Then, in a moment of sheer and utter impulse, Roger reached over and grabbed Brian’s hand. He held it tightly with both hands as if he was afraid of it disappearing then and there.“Then I met you, and I knew I was in deep shit,” he continued.//in which roger realises (whilst slightly drunk) that he's head-over-heels in love with brian may.





	i'm not going anywhere.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first fic so please be nice :))))
> 
> so yeah i'm madly in love with both of these boys and so i decided to write a fluffy lil oneshot where they can just,,, be cute!
> 
> please comment some constructive criticism! i'd love to know your opinions on this and if there's anything i could do to improve for next time!!
> 
> <3

Falling in love with Brian May wasn’t a conscientious decision on Roger’s behalf.

No, Roger didn’t choose to fall for Brian.

‘Choose’ made it sound careful, a well-thought-out action, an idea that Roger had planned over and over in his head, like he was choosing what film to see, or choosing what flavour ice cream to buy.

There was nothing well-thought-out about Roger’s behaviour. For some reason unknown to him, Roger had started to notice Brian, and see at him in a way he had never viewed Brian before.

Roger had begun to notice the way Brian’s eyes lit up with delight whenever he started to talk about something he was interested in. More often than not, that something was space. Not that Roger was complaining - Roger could spend hours gazing at Brian’s crinkled up eyes, a small fire burning inside them, a fire that burned shades of teal and cyan and grey.

Roger had also noticed Brian’s freckles. And fucking hell, Brian’s freckles were cute. They were lightly splattered across his nose, stretching towards his cheeks, as if someone had taken a paintbrush and flicked brown paint on his face. Roger longed to touch them - he had often fantasised about lightly brushing his fingers over the constellations on Brian’s cheeks and joining up all the little freckles, pretending they were stars.

Roger had no say in the matter whatsoever. He was head over heels in love with Brian May.

However, he had somehow made the conscious decision to stand outside Brian’s room at 2 am, with plans to confess his feelings then and there.

Of course, it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Roger had been watching a rather addicting soap opera (whilst cradling a rather large bottle of vodka he had been saving for a special occasion), in which one of the main characters had just proposed to his girlfriend. This, along with an evening full of watching John and Freddie make out on the sofa out of the corner of his eye, had provoked a slightly tipsy Roger to rush out of the room and down the corridor to Brian’s bedroom, which was adjacent to his own.

He paused at the last second, however, his hand frozen on the door handle.

Roger realised with a start that he had no idea how best to approach this.

“Brian, I am in love with you,” sounded too formal and not at all like Roger.

“Am I an acorn? Because I fell for you,” was funny, but Roger didn’t really want to crack any jokes.

If Roger was being honest, he had no bloody idea what he was going to say to Brian.  
He just hoped to God that the effect from the vodka would last long enough because he really needed to be tipsy when he said it.

And if Roger was being really, really honest, he didn’t know why he was doing it. It was as if his legs had carried him there on their own accord, moved by some strange instinct that pulled them towards Brian as if he was some kind of magnet.

Maybe Roger was drunker than he thought.

But he still didn’t turn the handle. He just sat there in silence, listening to Freddie and John’s quiet murmuring from across the hallway, not too sure as to what he was meant to do now. He hadn’t thought this far ahead.

Brian was probably asleep. Roger could already picture himself knocking and knocking on the door, with Brian sleeping right through it. Brian didn’t fall asleep easily, but when he was asleep, that man was out cold - countless tour buses in which the three other members of the band ended up trying to carry the man - had made Roger certain of that fact. 

And also, there was no guarantee that Brian would like him back. What would he do if Brian rejected him? If he shut the door in his face, or laughed at him, or, worst of all, tried to let him down gently?

Was he supposed to say “ok! Thank you!”, turn around, and go home?

And never speak to Brian again, out of complete and utter shame.

Roger’s brain was cloudy from the vodka, but he was certain that he couldn’t face Brian shutting him down. 

In fact, come to think of it, Roger couldn’t remember if he had come out to Brian or not. Roger couldn’t recall the phrase “I’m a homosexual” leaving his mouth, but Roger got drunk quite a bit, and so Roger’s memory wasn’t exactly top notch.

Roger had never seen Brian with a man before, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t into dudes, right?

Roger sighed loudly through his nostrils, his fingers pinching at the bridge of his nose. 

He needed to get this over and done with now before he pussied out and had to sulk silently back down the corridor and go back to his own bed, in his own room, and resign himself to his own lonely life.

His hand tightened on the door handle, but he still couldn’t muster the strength to turn it and enter the dark room.

At that moment, Roger heard a soft noise behind him and turned to see one of Freddie’s many cats padding down the hallway towards him. It slowed down, before sitting a couple of feet away from Roger, looking at him expectantly with its head cocked slightly, its wide eyes glaring at him so fiercely, Roger felt that they were staring into his soul.

“What do you want?” Roger asked.

The cat tilted its head.

“Food?”

Its orange eyes blinked at him. Roger was reminded of a large bug.

“A piss?”

It flicked its tail and stood up. Roger swore under his breath when the cat walked away from him, wondering why his lead singer insisted on having so many dotted around the flat at all times as he watched the feline drift into the dark corridor.

He just didn’t seem to get cats - and they didn’t seem to get him. 

Cats were calm, graceful and elegant - three words which were the opposite of Roger Taylor. 

He was loud and clumsy, and he was a mess. Cats ran out of the room when he stumbled in the early hours of the morning, drunk out of his mind. Cats hissed at him when he shouted too loud at the TV (with John hissing at him to shut up or else in the background). Cats didn’t bother to enter his messy bedroom, with sheets that hadn’t been made for months and empty vodka bottles that hadn’t been disposed of.  
Cats didn’t seem to bond with people like Roger - they preferred people like Brian, who were calm, graceful and elegant.

Roger almost shouted out loud when he realised the correlation, but stopped himself hastily, instead choosing to shudder rather violently. It was an unattractive movement, but it was silent at least.

Brian was like a cat. He was calm, graceful and elegant. His bed sheets were always clean, his room was always perfect and neat, and he had a cold shower every day at 7 in the morning.

But if cats didn’t like Roger, then Brian shouldn’t like Roger, by that logic. They were polar opposites, two ends of a spectrum that would never meet, two contrasting colours, like red and green, or purple and yellow.

It was logic that was clouded with alcohol, sure, but it was logic nonetheless.

And it was with that logic, Roger opened the door.

Brian’s room was pitch black. Of course, the bastard had black-out blinds, Roger thought to himself as he tiptoed forward, straining his eyes and looking for the shape of a six-foot-two man on a bed.

Roger walked straight into said bed and tripped onto it. His arms cartwheeled in the air in a futile attempt to keep balance, but he landed in a heap on top of Brian, who shot up immediately, turning on the light with a shout and making Roger sit up.

It was only when the room was suddenly lit up that Roger realised he was straddling Brian. And it was also that moment when Roger realised that Brian slept in his underwear.

“Roger?” Brian said, eyes wide, so wide that Roger could see his whole pupil. Roger was reminded of the orange-eyed cat and shuddered.

“Roger?” Brian repeated, having gotten no answer previously.

“Brian,” Roger said, matter-of-factly.

“What are you doing in my room in the middle of the night?” Brian asked calmly as if he was asking what flavour juice Roger wanted, or what the weather was like.

Roger tried not to look at Brian’s bare chest and considered his choices.

He could come clean and tell Brian that he’d been head over heels in love with him for years. Or he could lie and bullshit an excuse.

“You reminded me of a cat,” Roger blurted out, only to cringe immediately after the words left his lips.

Brian’s face did not move. He stared at Roger without cracking a smile.

“You woke me up at -” he checked his watch, “- three in the morning, with your legs around my torso, to tell me that I reminded you of a cat?”

The sarcasm in the last few words of Brian’s sentence did not go unnoticed by Roger, whose blood ran cold as he realised he’d made a grave, grave mistake. Slowly, he peeled his legs off of Brian’s body, one by one, and he moved so he was perched on the end of the bed, with his back to the curly haired man.

There was an uncomfortable silence that hung in the air for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was probably only a minute or two. It was finally broken by Brian exhaling deeply through his nostrils, and Roger turned to see him running a hand through his hair, shaking his head.

Roger swallowed uncomfortably as he watched the muscles in his arm constrain with that simple movement.

“I have a test tomorrow,” Brian muttered softly under his breath, letting his arm drop to his side and pulling the duvet further up his body.

Roger swore. “What on?”

“Astrology,” Brian replied.

“Brian, I’m sorry, mate - I’m dead sorry, honest. I just - I mean I -” 

Roger trailed off into silence as he struggled to explain himself to his bandmate.

“It’s chill,” Brian said, waving his hand nonchalantly. 

The silence fell once again, and Roger closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. You’re a fucking idiot, Roger thought to himself. Brian’s going to fail his test tomorrow and it’s your fault. 

He turned to face Brian and found that he was already looking at Roger. Their eyes met and Roger stared into those hazel eyes for a good three seconds before dropping his gaze and scratching his hair with his left hand.

Roger knew he had to say this now. He wasn’t quite sure why, but he looked up and met Brian’s eyes once again, only forcing them to stay locked this time.

Here goes nothing, he thought.

“I like you.” he blurted out. Brian’s eyes widened a tiny amount, and his right brow arched ever so slightly. It was a miniscule movement, but to Roger, it was enough to confirm his worst fears. He felt his heart sink lower into his chest and his whole body felt as though someone had poured cold water over him.

In a desperate attempt to push down the tears that were threatening to make an appearance if he didn’t act fast, Roger started to talk.

“I know you don’t like me back, and that’s - that’s completely fine, but I needed to tell you, because it’s gonna eat me alive if I don’t and fuck I didn’t mean for this to happen, and I’m so sorry. I’ve made things awkward and-”

Roger was suddenly interrupted by Brian reaching forward and kissing him. 

Actually kissing him. As in grabbing Roger’s face and pulling it towards him and going straight in with no hesitation.

It was if fireworks had suddenly gone off inside Roger. Everything was alight - it was as if Roger’s body had been anticipating this, preparing the rockets for this exact moment. Roger’s eyes, out of shock, remained open for a few seconds before he realised what was happening and he clamped them shut. 

It only lasted briefly, though, for Brian drew away after a few seconds (much to Roger’s disappointment). He didn’t go far, however. Brian gently touched Roger’s shoulder and cupped Roger’s chin with his other hand, softly moving it up so that their eyes met.

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Brian said, giving Roger an exasperated grin. “Of course I like you back.” 

When describing this moment in coming days, Roger would tell John and Freddie that this was the moment he jumped on Brian and kissed him back, thighs wrapping around his torso and hands grabbing his cheeks roughly. Roger would say that his instincts kicked in and the following hour was one of pure emotion, like something out of a film.

However, Brian would intercept and tell them that that wasn’t quite what happened.

“Oh,” Roger said in response.

He shook his head slightly in disbelief, an action that was small but did not go unnoticed by Brian. 

“What?” he said, and Roger was quick to reply.

“Nothing.”

“Why are you suddenly so awkward?” Brian asked, laughing.

Roger didn’t know. It was if all his previous dating experiences were rendered useless at this moment. Yes, he’d been with lots of women in the past, but most, if not all, of those experiences, were based on lust and lust alone. He’d taken home women that he’d met in clubs and liked the look of. They smiled and laughed at his jokes the morning after and then disappeared, never to be seen again. And Roger didn’t mind that. He didn’t feel sad when they left, it was just a thing that happened.

However, losing Brian was a thought that terrified Roger. He didn’t know how he would cope if this man disappeared. Roger’s feelings towards Brian were new and unfamiliar, and if he was being honest, they were pretty scary.

Roger wasn’t quite sure why, but he found himself spilling all this out to Brian.

“Because… because I don’t have relationships,” he said. Brian opened his mouth as if to protest, but Roger waved his hand frantically, and Brian seemed to get the message, for his mouth closed and he sat back slightly, pressing his back against the headboard of the bed and watching the blonde man on the end of his bed with a focused and collected gaze.

“I have one night stands. That’s all I’m good for. We shag, then they leave in the morning. That’s my routine. Everyone knows I sleep around, and I thought I was okay with it, I thought that was all my life was going to be - concerts, booze, and one-night-stands - and you know what, I was starting to come to terms with that. Maybe I even thought I was okay with it.”

Then, in a moment of sheer and utter impulse, Roger reached over and grabbed Brian’s hand. He held it tightly with both hands as if he was afraid of it disappearing then and there.

“Then I met you, and I knew I was in deep shit,” he continued.

Once again, Brian sat up and moved to speak, but Roger squeezed his hand and audibly shushed him so that he could continue. He spoke to Brian’s hand, not daring to look him in the eye out of fear as to what his expression would read.

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” Roger said, and Brian scoffed, shaking his head and laughing softly. “No, you are. Don’t take that lightly. You’re beautiful, and kind - God, you’re so fucking kind - and warm, and gentle, and clever, and I know, I know I’m selfish, uncaring and obnoxious - basically the opposite of you. I guess I’m just asking - no, I’m begging, for you to just push that aside and just see the man who is head over heels in love with you, and to not push him away.”

Roger finally looked up at Brian, but his vision was blurry through a fine layer of tears that had started to well up.

“And to stay.”

It was at this moment when Roger’s voice cracked and Brian shot up, instinctively wrapping his arms around the shorter boy so that Roger’s head was in the crook of Brian’s neck.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Brian whispered quietly into Roger’s hair, so quiet that Roger started to doubt that if he had imagined him saying it, but then Brian repeated himself, but louder, and any doubt was immediately erased from Roger’s mind. 

“I’m not going anywhere.”

All Roger could focus on was Brian’s soft hands running gently through his hair, and his soft voice gently whispering inaudible reassurances in his ear. Roger could feel his skin light up wherever Brian touched him, sending jolts of electricity rushing through the blond boy’s veins, and Roger was sure that he had never felt more alive.

Somehow they ended up lying down in the bed. Roger wasn’t quite sure how they had gotten into this position - not that he was complaining, however. His head was resting on Brian’s open chest, and with every breath that Brian took, his head moved gently up and down, too. 

Brian’s breaths were even and steady - he had fallen asleep. Roger was wide awake, on the other hand. How could he try and sleep when his legs were tangled around Brian’s? 

Which, by the way, had a significantly lower amount of clothing on, Roger thought. He had not forgotten that.

It was at this point Brian sighed deeply in his sleep, rolling over so Roger’s head was shifted to the pillow. He wrigged around in a comatose state, until they were face-to-face, their noses almost touching tips. He looks so peaceful, Roger thought to himself, and he swore to himself silently that he would do all he could ensure that Brian was this peaceful every day.

Roger could count all the tiny freckles on Brian’s cheeks. They were so small, unnoticeable to most people - but Roger, in this position, could see every single one. He resisted the urge to run his fingers along them and join them up, instead choosing to try and picture them as stars and constellations. 

He made a mental note to ask Brian to teach him about all the different constellations.

Closing his eyes, Roger focused on the feeling of Brian’s breath on his face. The rhythmic cycle of his breathing - in through his nose, and out through his mouth - turned his brain to mush. It was soft, oh my God it was soft, and all Roger could think about was the exhaled air slowly stroking Roger’s nose with each tiny puff.

I am so in love with you, Roger said to Brian in his head, not wanting to disturb him.

And it was with that thought that Roger finally fell asleep, face-to-face with Brian and squashed on his single bed.

Falling in love with Brian May wasn’t a decision that Roger planned to happen, but boy was he glad it did.


End file.
